Geometry, Proportion, and the Art of Lutherie: A Study of the Use and Aesthetic Significance of Geometry and Numerical Proportion in the Design of European Bowed and Plucked String Instruments in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth CenturiesThis study explores a controversial aspect of Western musical instrument design, establishing beyond question that the familiar stringed instrument outlines developed between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries were not arbitrary, intuitive shapes drawn within acoustically efficient frameworks, but were designs following a profoundly considered manipulation of plane geometry and numerical proportion. The central core of the work is the detailed step-by-step design analysis of thirty-three important historic instrument examples covering all main categories of stringed musical instruments of the period. |
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aesthetic Amati analysed Andrea Amati Antonio Stradivari arc BC arc centres arc of origin ASHMOLEAN beautiful body length body outline BRESCIA bridge position bridge-line Brunswick inches centre G centre line century Ciciliano circle cittern commensurable scheme completed by arc CONSERVATOIRE construction containing rectangle continued by arc counter-curve arc CREMONA Cremonese curve decorative drawn in Fig equal example f-hole finger-board geometry GIOVANNI golden-section grid guitar harmonic head horizontal instruments exhibit ITALY Jaye LIRA DA BRACCIO lower lower-bout arc lower-bout width lute luthier main arc main drawing makers mandoline mandore mathematics middle bouts middle-bout arc mould musical instruments neck overall proportions peg-box planning pochette proportionally quadrant arc radius relationship rose scroll side sound-hole spiral square Stradivari string length sympathetic strings THEORBO Tielke unit upper upper-bout upper-bout arc upper-bout width vectors Venice vertical vesica piscis Vinaccia viol viola d'amore violin whole-number